Respond to the post bellow  by comparing your assessment tool to theirs.  NOTE: my assessment tool: The patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9 Main Post According  to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1995),  children and adolescents are evaluated due to psychiatric disorders that  impair emotional, cognitive, physical, and/or behavioral functioning.  The child or adolescent is evaluated in the context of the family,  school, community, and culture. The purpose and aims of the clinical  diagnostic assessment are to determine whether psychopathology is  present and, if so, to establish a differential diagnosis and tentative  diagnostic formulation, to develop a treatment recommendation and plan,  or to communicate the above findings in an appropriate fashion to the  parents and child. In addition, the aims of the assessment process are  to identify the stated reasons and factors leading to the referral, to  assess the nature and severity of the child's behavioral difficulties,  functional impairments, subjective distress, and to identify individual,  family, or environmental factors that may potentially account for,  influence, or ameliorate these difficulties. When assessing children,  parents’ interviews and school functioning reports are necessary. The  assessment tool I will discuss in this post is the Screen for Child  Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Per the University of  Pittsburg (2019), SCARED is a child and parent self-report instrument  used to screen for childhood anxiety disorders including general anxiety  disorder, separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social  phobia. In addition, it assesses symptoms related to school phobia. The  SCARED consists of 41 items and 5 factors that parallel the DSM-IV  classification of anxiety disorders. The child and parent versions of  the SCARED have moderate parent-child agreement and good internal  consistency, test-retest reliability, and discriminant validity, and it  is sensitive to treatment response Target population : Children ages 8-18 years Intended users : Clinicians and Psychiatrists Time to Administer : 10 minutes Completed by : Children and Parents How to Use SCARED :  SCARED is a questionnaire with scales that describes how people feel.  Clients read each phrase and decide if it is “Not True or Hardly Ever  True” or “Somewhat True or Sometimes True” or “Very True or Often True”.  Then, for each sentence, they fill in one circle that corresponds to  the response that seems to describe them for the last 3 months. After  each phrase and circles, there are abbreviations of the various  disorders. Therefore, a total score of >25 may indicate the presence of an Anxiety Disorder .  Scores higher than 40 are more specific. A score of 7 for items 1, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19, 22, 24, 27, 30, 34, 38 may indicate Panic Disorder or Significant Somatic Symptoms (PN).   A score of 9 for items 5, 7, 14, 21, 23, 28, 33, 35, 37 may.

1. Respond to the post bellow
by comparing your assessment tool to theirs.
NOTE: my assessment tool: The patient Health Questionnaire
(PHQ-9
Main Post
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry (1995), children and adolescents are evaluated due
to psychiatric disorders that impair emotional, cognitive,
physical, and/or behavioral functioning. The child or
adolescent is evaluated in the context of the family, school,
community, and culture. The purpose and aims of the clinical
diagnostic assessment are to determine whether
psychopathology is present and, if so, to establish a differential
diagnosis and tentative diagnostic formulation, to develop a
treatment recommendation and plan, or to communicate the
above findings in an appropriate fashion to the parents and
child. In addition, the aims of the assessment process are to
identify the stated reasons and factors leading to the referral, to
assess the nature and severity of the child's behavioral
difficulties, functional impairments, subjective distress, and to
identify individual, family, or environmental factors that may
potentially account for, influence, or ameliorate these
difficulties. When assessing children, parents’ interviews and
school functioning reports are necessary.

2. The assessment tool I will discuss in this post is the Screen for
Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Per the
University of Pittsburg (2019), SCARED is a child and parent
self-report instrument used to screen for childhood anxiety
disorders including general anxiety disorder, separation anxiety
disorder, panic disorder, and social phobia. In addition, it
assesses symptoms related to school phobia. The SCARED
consists of 41 items and 5 factors that parallel the DSM-IV
classification of anxiety disorders. The child and parent
versions of the SCARED have moderate parent-child agreement
and good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and
discriminant validity, and it is sensitive to treatment response
Target population
:
Children ages 8-18 years
Intended users
:
Clinicians and Psychiatrists
Time to Administer
:
10 minutes
Completed by
:
Children and Parents
How to Use SCARED
: SCARED is a questionnaire with scales that describes how
people feel. Clients read each phrase and decide if it is “Not
True or Hardly Ever True” or “Somewhat True or Sometimes

3. True” or “Very True or Often True”. Then, for each sentence,
they fill in one circle that corresponds to the response that
seems to describe them for the last 3 months. After each phrase
and circles, there are abbreviations of the various disorders.
Therefore,
a total score of >25 may indicate the presence of an
Anxiety Disorder
. Scores higher than 40 are more specific.
A score of 7 for items 1, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19, 22, 24, 27, 30, 34,
38 may indicate
Panic Disorder or Significant Somatic Symptoms (PN).
A score of 9 for items 5, 7, 14, 21, 23, 28, 33, 35, 37 may
indicate
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GD).
A score of 5 for items 4, 8, 13, 16, 20, 25, 29, 31 may indicate
Separation Anxiety Disorder (SP).
A score of 8 for items 3, 10, 26, 32, 39, 40, 41 may indicate
Social Anxiety Disorder (SC)
A score of 3 for items 2, 11, 17, 36 may indicate
Significant School Avoidance (SN)
(see the attached document or link, it’s the SCARED assessment
and how the score is calculated: source
http://www.shared-
care.ca/files/SCARED_Child_Updated_June_2015.pdf
)
Psychometric Properties
: There are accumulating studies that have shown the SCARED

4. to have good psychometric properties for children and
adolescents from various cultures, so SCARED can be utilized
in various countries as a cross-cultural screening instrument for
DSM-V anxiety disorders. The psychometric properties of the
SCARED are strong because females scored significantly
higher than males, and that age had a moderating effect on
male and female score differences. Studies have demonstrated
that girls run a higher risk of developing anxiety disorders than
boys. The moderating effect of age on anxiety symptoms,
particularly generalized anxiety disorder symptoms increases
for older girls that may highlight the importance of early
interventions for them to help reduce the risk for later
developmental maladaptation (Crocetti et al., 2011)
Diagnosis for a Client Receiving Psychotherapy
: Possible diagnoses for these clients under Anxiety Disorders
are Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia (fear of places and
situations that might cause panic, helplessness, or
embarrassment), Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety
Disorder (formerly Social Phobia), and Generalized Anxiety
Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2017).
Legal and Ethical Implications of Counseling Children
: The four ethical/ legal issues that arise when counseling
children are counselor competence, informed consent,
confidentiality, and mandatory reporting of child abuse.
Counselor Competence
- that is knowledge and skills of the counselor (e.g. use of play
therapy), knowledge of mental disorders, understanding human
development, understanding family structure, culture/ diversity,
and a more talked about topic (transgender).
Informed Consent
- It is formal permission that allows treatment. The counselor
and client fall under legal jurisdiction of contract law. Minors
can only enter a contract by parental / guardian consent,
involuntary at parent’s insistence, or ordered by juvenile court.

5. Through informed consents, clients are given voluntary
knowledge of treatment, must understand consequences of
treatment, and if not obtained, counselors are held responsible,
and sued for battery, failure to gain consent, & child
enticement.
Confidentiality
must be maintained so it will not cause lack of trust and
communication, child not seeking treatment, or early
termination of psychotherapy.
Mandatory Reporting
: mental health professionals must report in all States. It’s the
duty of health care providers to report and failure to report
breaches legal and ethical standards (Garnsey, n.d.)
References
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1995).
Practice Parameters for the Psychiatric Assessment of
Children and Adolescents.
Retrieved March 2, 2020, from
https://www.aacap.org/App_Themes/AACAP/docs/practice_para
meters/psychiatric_asse
American Psychiatric Association (2013).
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth
Edition.
Retrieved March 2, 2020, from
https://dsm-psychiatryonline-
org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/doi/book/10.1176/appi.books.97

6. American Psychiatric Association (2017). What Are Anxiety
Disorders?
Retrieved March 3, 2020, from
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/anxiety-
disorders/what-are-anxiety-disorder
Crocetti, E., Meeus, W. H. J., Raaijmakers, Q. A. W., William,
W. H. (2011).
A meta-analysis of the cross-cultural psychometric
properties of the Screen for Child
Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Retrieved
March 3, 2020, from
https://eds-a-ebscohost-
com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&si
d=de03210f-a792-44d7-bb
Garnsey, E. (n.d.). Legal and Ethical Issues When Counseling
Children.
Retrieved March 3, 2020, from
https://eportfolio.pace.edu/artefact/file/download.php?file=1125
08&view=76785
Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED)-
(2012).
CHILD Version—Page 1 of 2 (to be filled out by the CHILD)
Retrieved March 3, 2019, from

7. http://www.shared-
care.ca/files/SCARED_Child_Updated_June_2015.pdf
University of Pittsburg (2019). Instruments- Screen for Child
Anxiety Related Emotional
Disorders (SCARED). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from
https://www.pediatricbipolar.pitt.edu/resources/instruments
SCARED_Child_Updated_June_2015.pdf